


Playing Dirty

by Egleriel



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Gregor Clegane is His Own Warning, Hand's Tourney but a rugby match, Joffrey Baratheon Being an Asshole, Yep another crackfic sorry gang, rugby au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 10:07:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21297704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Egleriel/pseuds/Egleriel
Summary: SansaknowsJoff is almost as bad at playing rugby as he is at making her happy, yet he's still (somehow) on the Westerlands team and he's still (somehow) Sansa's boyfriend. A team retreat before the World Cup gives Sansa a chance to meet the teammates she's heard so much about. It should all be pretty straightforward, right? Friendly match against Dragons, a dinner-dance in the evening, then home in the morning. Lovely.Loosely based on the Hand's Tourney. I don't know where this came from.
Relationships: Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark
Comments: 9
Kudos: 49





	Playing Dirty

Jeyne, as usual, hadn’t dressed warmly enough. Usually Sansa put her friend’s inappropriate fashion choices down to her increasingly-desperate attempts to turn the head of the university team’s scrum-half, but that didn’t apply on this occasion. They’d made the drive out to Darry for a pre-tournament friendly between Westerlands and a club side, Dragons: with Joff named in his national 31 for the very first time, Sansa’s attendance was required. 

Dread coiled in her stomach at the thought of the game. When she first started going out with Joff, her heart had been in her mouth every time she watched him play. Every tackle – given or received – horrified her and every time he got the ball she prayed he’d acquit himself. By now, however, it was plain to her that Joffrey had gained none of his grandfather Tywin’s legendary ability to read the game, none of his father Robert’s leadership and strength, none of his uncle Jaime’s speed - and none of the sportsmanship that Sansa’s upbringing had led her to expect in a player.

There were those who said Joff was only on the KLU team – had only _ever_ been picked for _any _team – because of his grandfather’s money and his father’s clout. Privately, Sansa concurred. Joff’s selection for Westerlands in the lead-up to the World Cup had not gone down well with the pundits or the supporters, and he demanded fulsome praise from Sansa to reassure him. Every day she worried that he’d see through her flattery, because the truth was that she didn’t know what he was capable of. That in itself terrified her. But it was a concern for another day.

* * *

Dragons were already warming up when Sansa and Jeyne took their seats. The King’s Landing club was struggling out of a run of poor form, with a young squad only just finding their feet in the league; the Westerlands national side was expected to smash them today, but there were players in the black-and-red jersey who had the potential for glory with their own nations in the next few years. There was Robar Royce from the Vale, following in his father’s footsteps as a versatile and skilful prop; there was Balon Swann, who scored last season’s most sensational try (in Sansa’s opinion) in the relegation decider against Krakens; and _there_, most dangerously of all, was Loras Tyrell at flyhalf. Loras had all of the advantages that Joff did: rugby connections, family money, the kind of clean-cut good looks sponsors love – except, unlike Joff, Loras was actually a truly sensational player. 

A techno arrangement of _The Rains of Castamere_ boomed over the PA system to herald the appearance of the Westerlands.

“Gods, how tall is _he_?” gasped Jeyne.

“7 foot 3,” said Sansa absently, guessing who Jeyne was talking about while she scanned the goldshirts for her boyfriend’s blond head.

Ah. There he was, next to another enormous athlete that Sansa guessed was Sandor Clegane, younger brother of the man-mountain that had so shocked Jeyne. On any other team, Sandor would have been the towering outlier: 6 foot 8 and muscled like a bull. There were a few other men so tall on the various professional teams, but most tended to look gangly - almost waiflike - despite their demonstrated strength. Joff spoke highly of the younger Clegane’s sense of humour after every team training, which did not incline Sansa to think well of the man. Joff had little to say of Gregor Clegane, save to marvel at his size; Sansa guessed that her boyfriend was rather afraid of him.

After a few running and passing drills, Joff peeled off to kick a few practice points along with Addam Marbrand and Tybolt Crakehall. Joff lacked the polish and ease of the two experienced kickers, and compared even more unfavourably to Loras Tyrell at the other end of the field.

The teams coalesced around their coaches for a final huddle, then the reserves jogged off to take their places on the bench. If Sansa was lucky, she’d only have to listen to Joff whine about being denied playtime; if she was unlucky, he’d actually get on the field and have to find scapegoats for his mistakes. Sansa, increasingly, was an option there. Another problem for another day, because it made her head swim to think about the way he spoke to her sometimes.

* * *

Then it was on. 

Marbrand passed to Lancel Lannister, who tapped it forward and made a dash for the try-line. Watching him run, Sansa acknowledged that he really wasn’t a bad player – just that his predecessor at that position, Joff’s uncle Jaime, was an incredibly tough act to follow. It was Jaime and Marbrand’s brilliant partnership that had kept Westerlands in serious contention for the last two World Cup cycles. Though both were probably past their best by now, they still stood head and shoulders over Lancel’s generation – at least until a serious arm injury forced Jaime’s retirement over the summer. The sponsors had grieved. 

“Is it me, or is this a really _quick_ game?” Jeyne noted.

“It’s pretty snappy all right,” was all Sansa said.

She tried hard to keep the bite out of her tone. It was simply of a higher standard than the university rugby that was Jeyne’s entire experience of the game. Jeyne had tagged along to a social with Sansa near the start of the year, and Sansa had blithely introduced her to a mature student from one of her modules - a slight Stormlander whom she hadn’t known was on the team. After that, Jeyne had come to every club event; she’d once worn a pair of actual heels to the muddy sidelines for her weekly hour-and-a-half of mooning over Beric Dondarrion – a tactical error that Sansa simply could not forgive six months into the season, and especially not when Jeyne thought _just showing up_ was a seduction technique.

Lancel came under pressure from Thoros of Myr, for whom Dragons had paid an extortionate transfer fee three seasons earlier. Only one Westerlander was in position to receive the ball – to Sansa’s surprise, it was the smaller Clegane, who’d dodged through the Dragons back line with more grace than she would have expected in such a big player. He passed it back to Simon Westerling, who returned it to Lancel Lannister, who fumbled the pass but still got it into the ready hands of Sandor Clegane.

“Try’s on,” Sansa muttered – right before a horrified gasp went up in the stands and the referee’s whistle screamed.

One of the wingers for Dragons was on the ground, his torso twisted at a sickening angle. Gregor Clegane was straightening up just a few feet away. He barely gave the fallen man a glance before stomping off, making room for sprinting medics. The Dragons captain, Lothor Brune, was gesticulating wildly at Clegane as he protested to the referee. With Clegane's appalling disciplinary record and the rumours of what he'd got away with off the pitch, it wasn't hard to guess what had happened. The ref had yet to take his eyes off the injured player, who was being stretchered off, and Sansa's gorge rose. Some instinct told her that the poor man would probably never walk again. 

The whistle blew again, dismissing Brune and summoning Clegane for a booking. It was a penalty for Dragons, obviously, and surely-

Then the referee put away his notebook, blew the whistle again and jogged away, leaving the huge man smirking. No card.

The loss of their winger, and the thrill of seeing their man kick the first points of the game against the formidable Westerlands, seemed to galvanise Dragons. Through some animal wariness, Sansa was finding it hard to take her eyes off Gregor Clegane for very long. She winced at every impact, cringed at every tackle and noted every small-scale foul he committed away from the referee's gaze. Robb was going to have to face this monster on the pitch next month. Her dear Robb would risk the fate of that Dragons winger - though with the TV cameras present, Clegane would have to wait until Robb actually had the ball. It scarcely bore thinking about. 

* * *

Westerlands got their act together at the start of the in the second half. It took 12 phases of play, but a smart cross-field kick to Podrick Payne on the wing led to Westerlands' first try of the game, which was converted quickly by Addam Marbrand. 3-7. The momentum, however, did not last. As they tried to bully Dragons into making mistakes, the club side seemed to find new impetus and look for ever-more-audacious scoring opportunities to regain the lead. The result was an exciting end-to-end contest. Sandor Clegane kept popping up in the fray; while Sansa couldn't forgive the misogynistic jokes the big man had added to Joff's arsenal, she could (grudgingly) appreciate his importance to the Westerlands game. Not, perhaps, a brute like his brother.

Even as she hoped for a Westerlands win, she couldn't help rooting for Loras Tyrell a little when the lad went toe-to-toe with Gregor Clegane. Tyrell sold Clegane a dummy, then skipped away with the ball still in hand and spun it expertly to brawny Balon Swann, who streaked over the try-line in a blur of black-and-red. Clegane _fumed, _spitting out his mouthguard. Sansa could see he'd bitten it in half.

The Dragons fans in the stands were getting noisy. They'd come to see their team play, but not expected a win today; Sansa felt their disappointment when the ref blew a Westerlands penalty right under the Dragons posts.

"What was that for?" asked Jeyne.

"Entered the ruck from the side," Sansa shrugged. It was the kind of mistake that kept Thoros from ever earning a cap for Myr. According to Joff, the move to King's Landing was a last-ditch attempt to get to a World Cup, once he got citizenship.

"Who? Thoros?"

Sansa nodded and her friend went quiet. Sansa knew - _knew_ \- Jeyne was about to say that Thoros of Myr and Beric knew each other through some church thing, but there was a chance she'd remember that it was Sansa who'd told her in the first place, and there was a chance she'd get distracted by the place kick. Addam Marbrand's face had filled the big screen, solemn in concentration as he took the penalty. 10-10. It wasn't the send-off before the Summer Isles that Westerlands had expected; Joff certainly wouldn't be getting a run-out at this rate.

With only a few minutes left on the clock, Dragons were bogged down in their own half and faced with a ferocious Westerlands defence. A final attempt: an up-and-under from Loras Tyrell, who raced forward with Robar Royce to contest the high ball. Merlon Crakehall and Sandor Clegane were in hot pursuit, but Tyrell got there first. Then, from the side - _WHAM. _Arms like concrete beams closed around Tyrell's neck and he went crashing to the ground under the immense weight of Gregor Clegane.

There was a flurry of activity around the place where Tyrell had fallen. The referee blew his whistle sharply but players were still shoving each other, and Loras Tyrell hadn't risen. As the referee pushed his way into the mêlée, it seemed that the fight was not between Dragon and Westerlander, but between Clegane and Clegane. Loras Tyrell was sprawled backwards, supporting himself on his hands sporting a dazed look while Gregor Clegane loomed over him, blood dripping from his knuckles. Interposed between them was Sandor Clegane, who looked to be... fighting his brother? An assortment of players from both sides were trying to drag Gregor away from the scene, but to no avail.

At the sight of the referee, Sandor Clegane stepped back to shield Tyrell more closely and his brother's punch went wide, setting the huge man off-balance. Regaining his feet, he also seemed to come to his senses. A long-overdue red card appeared in the referee's hand and the elder Clegane left the field.

To Sansa's surprise, Loras Tyrell insisted on taking the penalty himself; even more surprisingly, he was permitted to do so. Despite putting it marginally wide, the crowd applauded as if it had been a winning kick, and a moment later the whistle blew for full-time.


End file.
